Sunday, 23 December 2018

Cool Poems

Despite
having written and published her poems for numerous years, this is Australian
Kate O’Neil’s first solo collection. It is especially for students who enjoy
words, who love rhythm and rhyme. The collection is divided into seven sections
with subject headings ranging from ‘In Australia’ and ‘Speaking Your Mind’ to ‘Play’
and ‘Light and Dark’.

One of the
first poems in the book under ‘Happy Living Things’ was a short free form poem
with a fine image that sticks in my mind. This is in ‘Slug’, where O’Neill writes, … ‘how is
it that your/loathsome taper/makes this/exquisite/tracery of silver script...’.
Beautiful! I urge you to get your hands on this book, so you can read poems
like this with such memorable imagery. Another short poem in the same section
is ‘To a Leech’, the first line of which reads, ‘You’re no prince in disguise’.

In the
section, ‘In Australia’, there are poems about being barefooted, eating
mangoes, climbing mountains, paragliding and cockatoos. Subject matter
throughout the book is wide-ranging and includes school rules, blowflies, Cocky’s
Joy, beating the blues and blind man’s bluff. Some poems, like ‘The Cynic Route’,
‘Gargoyle Guile’ and ‘Man and Moonshine’ are more suited to mature readers, but
there are plenty of fun poems sure to be enjoyed by younger readers, such as
the prima donna selection, ‘The Kid from Camdenville’, ‘Bare, Bare Black Sheep’
and ‘Classy Darcy’.

Happily,
too, there’s a variety of poetic forms from rap to couplets, quatrains to free
form. A few of the poems use the rhyming scheme of well-known poems. And, too,
the poet uses speech within poems such as in ‘Bedtime Boogie’ and ‘Bedtime’.

Booth has
done an excellent job of illustrating the collection with black and white line
and wash pictures. Stand-outs are the gargoyle illustrating ‘Midnight Feast’
and the big-headed cat about to pounce on the unsuspecting bold mouse.

If you’re
looking for a collection which will be rewarded by dipping into and reading
fun, serious and thought-provoking poems for your reader aged 9 to 14, this book
is highly recommended.